LYNN — Senior Night is always a special and emotional night for teams. On Monday, the Lynn Tech girls soccer team had its turn for its Senior Night at Manning Field against the KIPP Panthers.
The Tigers went up early in the first half, but the Panthers clawed back and came out with a 2-2 draw.
Lynn Tech opened the scoring with Cindy De Leon putting one in off a loose ball at the 24-minute mark to give her team a 1-0 lead.
Then it was De Leon again who found the back of the net. De Leon fired a shot that rebounded back to her and on her second bite of the apple, she converted to give the Tigers a 2-0 advantage.
KIPP went into halftime down two goals, but not down in belief.
Panthers goalie, Narayani Rodriguez, came out in the second half on fire making save after save to keep KIPP in the match.
With seven minutes remaining in the first half, KIPP’s Daniela Escobar scored a solo goal to cut the deficit to one, 2-1.
With just moments left in the game, the ball fell to Priscilla Lopez who came up with the game-tying goal late in the game to secure a draw for the Panthers.
Both teams had great defensive stops after the goal to bring the game to a final score of 2-2.
In their final game of the season, the KIPP girls showed great resilience and mounted a successful comeback.
“I think it was a good result from the girls, coming back from behind. The first half wasn’t so great. We came out 2-0 and we fought hard in the second half,” KIPP coach Sabil Kaddoura said.
The seniors stood out to Kaddoura, in what was their final game at Manning Field.
“My seniors stood out in their last ever game, they played very hard from whistle to whistle, Alexandra Arrevillaga, Jennifer Lopez, Joanna Lopez, Shayla Macario, and of course our goalie Narayani Rodriguez, and Nancy Esteban as well,” Kaddoura said.
For Lynn Tech, they felt like they should have had it, but it’s a game of runs and KIPP capitalized.
“We had a great first half, Cindy De Leon had two beautiful goals. We had a lot of effort, a lot of perseverance, excellent ball movement from our team, but unfortunately, we fell into the same old place where we sort of slow down, don’t finish, and bog ourselves down,” Tigers coach JD Perry said.
Perry’s message to his team was simple: it’s our last game, so let’s leave it all out there.
“This is senior night, our last time we are ever going to be on our home field this season, let’s make it work and unfortunately we didn’t work as a cohesive unit in a sustainable way,” Perry said. “We had flashes, but it wasn’t enough to carry us forward.”
Owen Finn is a student at Endicott College studying journalism
